…Goldman Sachs estimates that the housing sector nationwide could shed 1.5 million to 2 million jobs over the next several years as the industry retrenches. The result could be to reduce total U.S. employment growth to a monthly average of 100,000 jobs in 2007, from an average of 150,000 a month over the last three years, the firm said.

Direct employment in real-estate-related industries is just part of the equation when measuring the sector’s influence on the economy. There also is the so-called wealth effect that housing prices have on consumers’ spending.

Rocketing home prices over the last decade provided many Americans with an income windfall, either from the outright sales of houses at a profit or from mortgage refinancings or credit lines that allowed homeowners to cash in some of their accumulated equity.

A study coauthored by then-Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan last year estimated that mortgage-equity withdrawals tied to surging real estate values added $600 billion to consumers’ disposable income in 2004 alone, making up about 7% of the total that year…